Work Context: Beads, Gas City, Formulas, Orders, Skills, Packs¶
Role in the context plane¶
Answers "what work exists, and how does it execute" — the dimension the existing six context-plane files underrepresented. This file is a pointer index, not a restatement; each concept has one canonical owner elsewhere in Engineering-Standard, linked below. Don't collapse these into each other — they answer different questions:
| Concept | Answers | Canonical owner |
|---|---|---|
| Beads | WHAT work exists (durable work items, ownership, state) | Beads Work Ownership Contract |
| Dolt | Durable storage for Beads | Beads Work Ownership Contract |
| Gas City | Execution/routing/orchestration substrate — City/Rig/Agent/Session primitives | Gas City Adoption, Gas City Master Spec |
| Formula | HOW reusable work executes | Gas City Formulas Catalog |
| Order | WHEN/WHERE execution is invoked | Gas City Orders Catalog |
| Skill | Reusable procedural knowledge | Gas City Agents Catalog |
| Pack | Reusable Gas City capability/config bundle | Gas City Packs Catalog |
| Rig | A Git working tree registered with the one City | Gas City Rigs Catalog |
Authority¶
Authoritative for Beads/Dolt — the one Oracle-hosted City is the single source of work-intent truth (see the Duplicate City/Dolt Authority entry in the Failure Signature Catalog for the failure mode when a second City/Dolt instance is accidentally created). Gas City itself is execution authority for routing/dispatch, not a second work-intent store.
Query/access path¶
bd ready/bd show <id>— query current Beads work state. No local.beads/directory in a given checkout does not prove the work doesn't exist — it means this checkout isn't bound as a client of the one City; re-verify against the Oracle-hosted City before concluding "no work."gcCLI — current Gas City commands for rig/session/formula/order inspection. Use current--helpoutput, don't hardcode remembered syntax (commands and flags change release to release).- Skill/Formula/Pack discovery happens before inventing a procedure:
MATCHING_SKILL=/MATCHING_FORMULA=/MATCHING_PACK=— check the relevantgc-*.mdcatalog first.
Freshness¶
TRANSACTIONAL/LIVE for the Oracle-hosted City (Beads/Dolt) — same live-authority posture as GitLab, not a cache. Catalog files (gc-formulas.md etc.) are curated/point-in-time snapshots of the catalog — re-verify against the live gc CLI before assuming a catalog entry is current.
Mutation boundary¶
Beads/Gas City work mutations go through the authoritative Gas City/Beads scope — never edit .beads/issues.jsonl by hand (it's a passive export, not the ledger) and never run gc init/clone a second City (creates the duplicate-authority failure mode above). Formula/Skill/Pack source changes follow the same governed branch/MR/release path as any other repository.
Relationship to other context sources¶
- GitLab proves current code/CI/release state for a piece of work; Beads proves the work itself exists and who owns it.
- Orbit can show what depends on a change; it does not know whether a Bead exists for that change.
- Gas City is execution context — it is never a second work graph competing with Beads, and never a second documentation authority competing with QMD/BluCity-Docs.